Executive Accountability: Creating the Environment for Business Value from Technology

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Because technology reaches across and beyond the entire organization, there is a critical need for executive accountability, leadership, and involvement to achieve measurable business benefits from technology investments. Too often, the absence of strategic thinking, unverified technology benefits, ineffective organizational collaboration, and vague or dispersed managerial accountability seriously undermine the potential results that could otherwise be achieved from critical initiatives. The authors look realistically at how technology is chosen, how to evaluate existing technology, and how to deliver value. To change the typical pattern of failure, organizations must move away from the proliferation of blame. When accountability is not specified or when executives fail to take full ownership, the value technology delivers to the company is at risk. Executives can immediately improve the delivery of value from technology by implementing organization-wide collaboration and decision-making that ensures all voices are heard. A second crucial action to undertake is measurement, and this book describes the limits of only looking at problems from a financial perspective, identifies available tools, and offers new perspectives on measuring technology value. A third action is strategic initiative management, an oversight process that ensures that the consistent delivery of business benefits from technology initiatives is visible to executives while projects are under way.

Reviews

Executive Accountability offers a simple set of powerful tools that will help you identify market opportunities, plan and develop products and services for your customers. It walks you through the process of identifying a market need, creating a concept to fill that need, building a model and finally, refining your business to produce market value for your customers and your company. Whether you are a first-time business owner looking to grow your business or an executive in a large organization, this is the book for you. * Nancy Weavers, Chief Executive Officer, Left Coast Instruments, Inc., USA *
If you are a CEO of a corporation or own a business, buy Executive Accountability for yourself and your direct reports. Use the concise guidelines and tools to shift technology planning and implementation into generating valuable assets...Darlene's insights and approach are highly impactful and reflect a new breed of thinking that enables you to perceive, build, and preserve value as effectively as larger enterprises with greater resources. Plan strategically, operate efficiently, and fund properly in technology and beyond. * Michael Spears, Managing Partner, Bridgemark Group, LLC and CEO, FigureSoft, LLC, USA *
The discussions of the real-world cases are reassuring to managers in that they illustrate unexpected things sometimes occur but with good planning and open communication, obstacles can be overcome and projects can be successful in the long run. The Seeing Solutions Map is an excellent tool for aligning the organizations vision with information technology. Its concise, yet comprehensive. * Donna M. Schaeffer, Professor of Information Technology, Marymount University, USA *

Author Bio

DARLENE BARRIENTOS CRANE is President of PCI Crane Consulting. MARGERY MAYER is CEO and Senior Management Consultant at Strategy & Process Experts, a consulting firm that bridges the gap between initiatives and results.